Vacation Part 4: Princeton, New Jersey

After the wedding, we drove out to Princeton, New Jersey to visit Mark's grandfather. He is a retired mechanical (?) engineer from Bell Labs. He also taught at the university level. Grandaddy and Hazel live in a retirement community outside Princeton. It was nice to finally meet them and to introduce them to Matthew. We would visit with them in the evening and during the day, we left Matthew with my in-laws and Mark, Michael, Anna and I would travel to New York City. Matthew seemed to really enjoy this arrangement. I'm told that both days we were in New York, he slept all day long. Matthew got along really well with Grandaddy. Grandaddy had an "Easy" button from Staples that he would react to whenever Matthew pushed it. Matthew quickly figured the game out. He would get the easy button and then stare pointedly at Grandaddy when he pushed the button to watch for Grandaddy's reaction. We also met Mark's uncle Doug, who lives nearby. He was a really fascinating person and extremely intelligent. He's a physicist, I think, but he works in an experimental lab working on cold fusion. Apparently, they have been able to get a sustained reaction for 5-10 seconds.

One more Matthew story. One night we all ate dinner at the dining room. It's apparently the grand event of the day for all the residents. It's like going to a resteraunt - your party is seated and waiters serve you off a menu. But the menu doesn't have prices (all the residents have already paid). Anyway, we ate dinner there, and Matthew was in a good mood, but didn't want to sit still. So everyone alternated taking him out in the hall to walk around. We had been one of the first groups to arrive, so the hall was full of senior either waiting for other people or waiting for a table. Matthew just charmed all the residents. They don't see many babies, and he was in a good mood so he would give everyone a big dimpled smile. So in the hall we would walk around saying hello to all the residents. At one point near the end, I carried him back to our table at the back of the dining room. He was perched on my shoulder like a parrot, and all the people at the tables we passed we smiling, or waving or saying hello. He was quite the celebrity.

Matthew with Hazel's cane

Mark, Matthew, Diane, Grandaddy and Hazel

Matthew and his great-grandaddy

This is the "trick" we taught Matthew. He showed it off so many times during our vacation that he got to be quite efficient. Whenever you said "What" he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. This video was taken pretty late the night before we came home, hence the whining at the end.